by Logan Fox
He didn’t pause, but strode up the table and took the seat at the head. Javier gave him a dazzling smile across that long, glass table already laden with breakfast foods; croissants, bagels, fresh fruit, bacon and an assortment of various greasy breakfast meats…again, more food than double the amount of men could have consumed.
No one had touched anything yet—the entire table had been waiting for him and Lars.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee battled with bacon and bread still warm from the oven.
“Good morning, Mr. Finn,” Javier called out, louder than he had to over the distance. Cora flinched, and turned a freshly scrubbed face to Finn, giving him a tentative smile.
She didn’t look anything like the girl who’d commanded that he stay at her side a mere fifteen minutes ago. She’d brushed her hair into a glimmering curtain of black. She didn’t wear makeup this morning, but her eyes were still luminous, her skin glowing. She wore a canary yellow sundress, and for a moment it was almost impossible for him to take his eyes off her.
“I trust you slept well?” Javier asked, sounding as smug as the fucker looked.
Of course he knew Finn hadn’t spent the night in his own bed. He no doubt had his flurry of servants checking up and reporting every move his guests made. Perhaps even every move Cora made. The way he’d walked into her room this morning, not waiting for her to invite him in…
That had pissed him off beyond measure.
A hand lay briefly on his shoulder an instant before Lars came into view. He sank down in the chair beside Finn, giving the spread an appreciative once over before waving in the general direction of Javier and Cora.
Javier ducked his head infinitesimally in greeting, and then clicked his fingers over his head. “Buen provecho!”
Servants rushed forward and began serving the food, hovering like flies with coffee pots and jugs of freshly squeezed juice. He hadn’t noticed yesterday, but they all wore starched white uniforms—crisp and spotless as if they’d just been bought. Some of the women even wore small little caps that had been pinned to hair drawn up into twists or buns.
And at the forefront of all that bustle, of those lips smacking with the anticipation of that glorious spread, sat Javier. Head slowly turning, self-satisfied smile deepening.
A king, surveying his kingdom. With a pair of queens at either hand.
Javier touched Cora’s hand, and she barely stopped herself from starting. Her heart did a quick caper in her chest before evening out. She’d been like this the whole morning, jumping at everything her unc—Javier said or did. Because she was still waiting for him to accuse her of being some kind of philandering whore?
“Yes?” she prompted, when he did nothing but stare at her. In the shade of the patio, his dark eyes were inky pools. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he told her he and her father were in fact brothers—both had the same impossibly black eyes and dark features. But his mouth was more generous than her father’s and he had a dimple in his chin. He also wore his graying hair longer, where her father’s had always been neatly trimmed.
“Do you feel up for an adventure?” he asked in his sonorous voice.
“An…adventure?” she parroted, reaching for her cup of coffee if only to hide her uneasiness.
She’d had enough of damned adventures for a life time.
“If I recall, your father said you were quite the accomplished rider.”
For a moment, she thought he was referring to last night, like some kind of euphemism only the two of them would be able to puzzle out. Her cheeks flushed, and she took a too large sip of her coffee, spluttering when it burnt her tongue. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, and glanced down the table to where Finn and Lars sat.
Lars had dished up a heaped plate for himself, but Finn had settled on a piece of wholewheat toast and a cup of coffee. Finn watched her, but Lars seemed more interested in wolfing down his food than anything else, even the man sitting beside him who was trying to engage him in conversation.
Javier trailed his finger from one knuckle to the next, drawing her eyes back to him like filings to a lodestone. “I have a magnificent pair of geldings in my stables. I would love to take you out to see my land.”
Horse riding. Of course. She managed a relieved nod, and gave him a small smile. “Yes. I would—that would be wonderful. Gracias.”
“Fantastic!” he slapped the table, making Silvia splash coffee over the rim of her cup as she jumped. From the set of her mouth, she was glaring at him through her dark glasses. “I will send for you later.”
She speared a piece of papaya onto her fork and chewed it thoroughly, avoiding Javier’s eyes.
He’ll send for her? Did he expect her to stay in her room until then?
She’d thought up a lot of questions on the car ride over here. How temporary this situation really was. Who was doing what to find out where her father was. Maybe Javier would answer those this morning and give her some clarity.
Because right now, she felt like a motherless, fatherless child. A dandelion, whipped along by the wind with no saying where—or when—she’d land on earth again.
And the one person who’d given her some kind of stability, a footing on treacherous ground…he was insistent on leaving.
37
A funeral
They buried the girl Angel had strangled under the boughs of a mesquite on the edge of Zachary’s property. There were other graves in the area, but all had subtle tombstones—some only a pile of rocks. The ceremony was short, somber, and constantly interrupted by the wails of the mourning mother.
“You tried again?” Zachary asked Rodrigo. He and Ailin stood to either side of Zachary. For once, his dogs weren’t on his heels—he’d instructed them to stay behind on the ranch. They wouldn’t have liked the atmosphere out here, nor the mother’s incessant tears.
“Si,” Rodrigo murmured. “She threw the money back in my face.”
Zachary sighed. “It was enough for her to start a new life.”
“She’s emotional,” his lieutenant said.
The black-veiled mother fell to knees when a pair of sicarios began filling in the grave. There was no priest to conduct the funeral, but one of Zachary’s falcons had said a few words over the girl’s burial shroud.
He’d offered to buy a coffin, but that had apparently sent the girl’s mother into a fit of rage.
“They are not to leave the property,” Zachary said.
“Already made that clear,” Ailin cut in. “Their son said he had business in town, but I told him to postpone it for now.”
The shrouded body was soon completely obscured by dirt. This seemed to snap the girl’s mother out of her frenzy. She got to her feet with the aid of her son, and stood swaying as she cast a bleary gaze over the small crowd.
No one else had shed a tear.
The mother’s eyes fixed on Zachary. She surged forward, but her son caught her elbow and held her back.
“Where is he?” came her strangled yell. “Where is her murderer?”
Zachary watched silently. Then he cocked his head at Rodrigo, and the man crossed over to the mother. He turned her away, murmuring something to her as he and her son led the woman away from the grave site.
“Wait another few days, then press the money on her. She’ll take it.”
Ailin gave a nod.
“And Angel?”
Zachary’s lips twisted into a sour grimace. “He has made it very clear where his loyalties lie.” He walked away from the grave with Ailin. It was a beautiful, if crisp, morning on the ranch. Tools had been downed at the nearby construction site in respect for the funeral, but they’d be picked up again in half an hour.
For now, a hushed anticipation lay over his land.
“We lost what would have been a great advantage,” Zachary said.
“I should have gone with,” Ailin said, sounding bitter. “I could have—”
“No,” Zachary murmured. “Things would have turned out the same. Sh
e is not meant to be at my side. Not yet.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
“But, perhaps we could persuade El Calacas Vivo to give her to me.”
“Don?” Ailin asked. He had a hand on his pocket, as if he was considering whether to have a cigarette or not.
“We know who lives at the end of that yellow brick road,” he said. “Maybe it’s time we surrendered a pawn in hope for a queen.”
38
Talking business
With Cora sitting so far away, he didn’t even know why the fuck he’d bothered to come. She must have felt some of his frustration—she kept glancing at him from under lowered lashes when she must have thought he wasn’t looking. But he was always watching. Would always be watching. He’d been a fool, thinking his obsession with her would end once she was safe. Because where could a cartel princess ever be safe? Unless she renounced her family name forever, forged a new identity far away from cartel business…she was destined to be a part of its violence until she was murdered in cold blood one clear summer’s day.
“Fantastic!” Javier called out from the other end of the table, forcing conversation to lull for a brief second.
Cora looked uncomfortable with the sudden interest in their side of the table, and ducked her head as she ate some of her fruit salad.
He’d never know what was so fantastic—he was leaving.
“Coming?” he asked, downing the last of his coffee and leaving his mostly uneaten piece of toast behind on his plate.
“Seriously, do you run on fumes?” Lars muttered. He’d only just finished his first plate of food, and had been staring at the table as if wondering what he hadn’t tasted yet. “Just let me get some of those amazing looking muffins—”
“See you in Albuquerque then.” Finn turned, and was almost through the archway that led into the villa’s courtyard when Javier called after him.
“Mr. Finn! Mr. Eklund! Please, a moment of your time before you leave. If you’d be as kind.”
The sudden urge to correct the man who took such great pleasure in correcting others was near impossible to resist. As was the urge to just keep walking.
We don’t want to leave, his beast hissed at him. Not if we can’t take her with. We’re not done with her yet.
His beast should have been sated. He shook away the voice, its amoral insinuations, and turned to Javier. The man rose and waved toward a small gazebo on the other side of the swimming pool.
Lars was a step behind him as he followed Javier to the ornate structure. He could feel eyes on him—several men at the table were watching their progress across the swimming pool’s paving stones—and a pair of them left half-eaten plates behind to casually follow along behind Finn and Lars.
Because Javier always needed protection, didn’t he?
The gazebo had been built to afford whoever inside it an unobstructed view of both the swimming pool and the sweeping lands of Javier’s compound. The man stood surveying that endless terrain, favoring them with a wide, amiable smile when they stepped into the gazebo’s shade.
“Please, take a seat.” Javier waved, and Lars immediately slunk to the closest cushioned seat and slumped in it.
Finn paused, and then perched judiciously on the bench opposite. Javier walked between them, taking one of their shoulders in each hand.
“You will forever be in my debt for returning mi reinita to safety,” Javier said. As if she was his daughter, not Swan’s. Finn purposefully smoothed his frown, trying to give the man nothing in return for his strange remark.
“Just doing our job,” Lars said, corners of his mouth up. If the man didn’t want you to know what he was thinking, he just turned on one of his ready smiles and you’d have no idea you were walking into a knife until its blade scraped along your spine.
“Yes, but…” Javier trailed off, and then sank down on the bench beside Lars. First, he fixed Finn with a long stare, and then an unreadable glance for Lars beside him. “When Antonio contacted me that night and told me he’d hired someone to replace Bailey…I didn’t know what to think. Here he entrusts his only daughter to a complete stranger. I know Antonio would not have selected you as her bodyguard if you did not have a stellar record, but there was always the thought…” Javier tapped his temple with a dark finger. “Everyone has a price, yes?”
“I would never—” Finn began in a tight, rough voice, but Javier’s short burst of a laugh cut him off.
“Of course. You would never. Never, ever.” Javier said all this through a smile as fake as Lars’s. “But the thought did cross my mind. As it must have Antonio’s.”
Javier nodded a few times, glancing between them as if considering something monumental.
Finn itched to be away. The time he’d had to himself, even the distance at the patio table, they’d all helped to pull him out of Cora’s spell. But the longer he spent here, within sight of her, the more his determination to leave wavered.
“I’ve seen you with her,” Javier went on in a low musing. “You…cherish her. Like a precious gift.” He formed his hands as if he was holding something. A crystal ball, maybe. Or one of those big fucking bird eggs. “That—” he tutted a finger at Finn and sat back on the bench, sliding his arms out to either side along the armrest. “That is something that cannot be bought. That kind of loyalty is what I look for in a sicario.”
A cartel hitman? Finn shifted, giving Lars a circumspect look that Lars missed because he was grinning at Javier like the man had lost his mind and this was the best entertainment he’d had all week.
“I had some of my men asking around the past week,” Javier said. “So far, the only lead they have on Antonio is the suspicion that it was in fact Plata o Plomo—” he spoke the name with unveiled disgust “—who took him captive. Where, they have been unable to deduce. The tracker he wears has been disabled. And there were only two eye witnesses at the funeral. Both of whom turned up dead the next day.”
“Do they think he’s still in Mexico?” Lars asked.
“No one can say for sure.” Javier looked away, and ran a hand through his hair while still resting his elbow on the back of the bench. “I am told they are doing everything they can to find him. To bring him back…” Javier’s face hardened then. “Whether he’s dead or alive.”
Silence filtered between them until Lars sat forward and half-twisted to face Javier. “So what, you want us to go look for him? Cross the border and go interrogate some ‘spics the good old-fashioned way?”
And he sounded as if he was ready to leave in the next hour. Lars, unlike him, enjoyed violence more than any man should. Finn detested it, because there was always the chance it would get out of hand. That he’d slip—just for a second—and his beast would take control. And that he’d never find the reigns to his own goddamn soul again.
Javier laughed. “Not at all. My men can get into places you two gringos could not dream.” Javier pressed his lips together, shifting in his seat as if he hadn’t been happy with the word ‘gringo’s slipping into his speech. “No, I need something else from you. Something I am sure you would find very agreeable.”
His eyes sparkled with knowing. Like they shared a secret.
“Eleodora has a long, arduous path ahead of her.”
The statement came out of nowhere. Lars and Finn shared a quick look between them, and he could see his own confusion mirrored in the man’s eyes.
“Ominous much?” Lars said.
“If Antonio is not recovered,” Javier said simply, with a twist of his hand as if the man’s fate had already been decided, “then she will inherit his position in the cartel.”
Behind them, someone jumped into the pool. A volley of laughs and at least one giggle reached them before Finn gripped his hands in a fist and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “His position?” he asked quietly.
“El Calacas Vivo works like—” Javier waved a limp hand, as if searching for the right word “—a monarchy, I believe it is called. Power
is passed from father to son…in this instance, father to daughter.”
Again, that cold light slid into Javier’s eyes, but as soon as he smiled it disappeared. “Antonio should have tried for a son. His Naomie should have born as many children as it would have taken for that to happen.” Javier’s mouth formed a line. “But he gave up. After the two girls, he didn’t want to bring any more children into this world. After his wife and daughter were butchered, he turned into a scared little rabbit, bolting into America to hide.”
Finn’s hands tightened around themselves until his knuckles went white. Even Lars had gone silent, his body rigid as he listened to Javier’s words. He couldn’t understand how what Swan had done was any different to Javier. Wasn’t the capo hiding here, in his palace, in the middle of no man’s land? If anything, he’d dug himself even deeper, like a rat in its nest.
“He ran away—” Javier mimicked someone running with his fingers “—to America. Sought comfort and safety in her rich bosom. Even when I told him it wouldn’t help. He quit the cartel, but that lasted less than a month.”
Javier sat forward, matching Finn’s posture. “You see money, Mr. Finn, when you have as much of it as Antonio, is like a sickness. An addiction. The more you have, the more you want. He kept telling himself he’d stop, but he never could.”
“Cora won’t be part of it,” Finn said. His voice rang out dead and cold. He almost added, “I know she won’t,” but something told him to seal his lips before those words could leave him.
“Yes?” Javier cocked an eyebrow, and settled back again, once again relaxed. “You think she will toss away her life of luxury and be satisfied with a minimum wage job and a shitty apartment?”
Javier waited for Finn to answer, as if that question was far from rhetorical or theoretical. But when Finn opened his mouth to answer, the man cut in.